Hanafin to publish school reports

PARENTS should have more information about local schools and greater help deciding where to enrol their children when school inspection reports are published for the first time.

Education Minister Mary Hanafin announced yesterday the first whole school evaluation (WSE) reports will be available on her department’s website from late March or early April.

These give an analysis of each school’s delivery of the curriculum, its resources and extra-curricular activities, as well as examining policies on behaviour, attendance, enrolment.

The regulations signed by Ms Hanafin yesterday allow publication of all reports of WSE inspections carried out from next Monday.

Reports of subject inspections, in which teaching and resources in specific subjects at second-level schools are examined, will also be made available. However, the inspectorate will not publish reports on the work of individual teachers.

The reports do not provide exam results or analyse student performance but Ms Hanafin said they will help give accurate and balanced information.

She also issued guidelines on the publication process, following consultations with teacher unions, school management, trustees, parents and students.

But concerns about possible identification of individual teachers will be raised at talks between unions and the Department of Education tomorrow.

This and other issues were referred by unions to the industrial relations machinery used by both parties for discussion this week.

The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) said they shared the minister’s concerns about league tables but they will monitor the publication process closely.

Neither the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) nor the Teachers’ Union of Ireland commented last night as the matter will be discussed with the department tomorrow.

But ASTI president Sheila Parsons criticised the publication proposal in a weekend message to members, saying schools in mixed socio-economic areas would be unfairly compared to those in better off areas.